So... It's been almost a month, which definitely wasn't planned, but basically since I had only planned the overall story for the second half, planning out the details took much longer than anticipated and on top of work and my stupid surprise illness, this chapter was delayed a lot despite it having been 95% finished for almost two weeks...

Anyways, since I'm still not done plotting out the remaining chapters completely, I'll probably bump the updates down to every other week, and I'll also change the day from Friday to Sunday. Hopefully this should prevent any other delays.

Anyways, on with the chapter!

~The heart of the enemy~

Usopp was running. He was running as fast as he could. The forest was weird. Not too long ago it had been peaceful and quiet, but as soon as the sun had set the animals had gone berserk. So far Usopp had only encountered slow animals which he could easily outrun, but he feared the worst. This forest contained a vast amount of animals, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to outrun wolves and foxes. More than anything Usopp wanted to climb a tree and hide there, but even they provided no safety. Monkeys, sloths and other wild beasts were occupying the treetops, so Usopp was just waiting for a miracle.

Upon reaching a big clearing, Usopp was sure he had encountered the exact opposite of a miracle. Before him was what he could only describe as a big enemy camp. There were unfamiliar pirates everywhere, and they were looking at Usopp like he was fresh meat and they hadn't eaten for a week. Usopp immediately turned tail and ran back into forest with no destination in mind. He had the herbs for Luffy's medicine, but he was horribly lost and hunted by pirates and animals alike. And that was when Usopp encountered a herd of deer. He could still hear the pirates behind him, but they weren't close enough to see where he was. Not that that was a good thing, because these deer looked as murderous as the pirates and Usopp would have preferred if the deer started fighting the pirates.

Of course he gained the unwanted attention of the deer, and before he could change directions and just run far, far away, the biggest deer launched for him. Usopp closed his eyes, but the impact never occurred, though he was pretty sure he heard the deer collide with something. Usopp slowly opened his eyes to find that another deer, albeit a bit smaller than the one who had tried to attack Usopp, was protecting him. The deer was slightly injured, and had pieces of its antlers missing, and Usopp immediately knew that this was the same deer he had helped that very morning. The enemy deer took a step back and shook its head in frustration. The deer who was helping Usopp stood protectively in front of him, but Usopp knew that he couldn't win the fight and he had other priorities.

Usopp ran to the side of the deer and started tying his bag to the deer. He then took a piece of cloth which hopefully had Chopper's scent all over it and let the deer sniff it. He gave the deer his goggles as well to let the crew know that he had sent it.

"Run," Usopp urged as he heard the pirates almost having reached them, "Run," Usopp yelled and pushed the deer away from the pirates. With a last look the deer set off, and disappeared into the jungle.

Now Usopp was stuck between the herd of deer and the enemy pirates, and he needed to decide what to do quickly. Although he knew absolutely nothing about the pirates, he figured that they would be easier to reason with and when the fight broke out, Usopp sided with them. Running away was not really an option, and if he could get on these guys' good side that would work out perfectly. It didn't go that well.

When the deer had been dealt with and they retreated into the deep jungle, Usopp was bound, gagged, and dragged to their camp. Usopp was slightly grateful that they didn't knock him out because if these pirates turned out to be trouble, then he'd prefer to learn as much about them as possible. Usopp was taken to what he assumed was an outpost. There was a camp fire and a convenient pole to which he was strapped tightly and painfully.

Usopp didn't know if they were being stupid or overconfident, because without blinding him nor covering his ears, the pirates who had caught him started discussing what they should do with him. Usopp rolled his eyes at their decision and was surprised that no one paid attention to him. They hadn't even taken the time to search his pockets and they should count themselves lucky that he did not have a knife on him, because he could very easily have escaped that way.

Though there were well over ten people gathered around the fire, it seemed that it was mostly three people who lead the conversation. Based on the colour of the shirts, Usopp decided to refer to them as such.

"We should tell the Captain," White said and there were about two or three who nodded in agreement.

"Are you insane?" Black countered, "We don't even know who he is! You'd wake the Captain for capturing a no name pirate?"

"What if he isn't some no name pirate?" Grey suggested, though he honestly looked more interested in eating his chicken than figuring out what to do with Usopp.

"Well, why don't we just ask him?" White suggested and Black sighed, because that was seriously such a bad idea.

"Hey! Long nose!" White yelled, and Usopp seriously had to resist rolling his eyes again, "What's your name?"

"Dorry," Usopp answered, deciding to just go with the first name he thought of that didn't belong to anyone in the crew. Having a great deal of respect for giants, he chose the name of a friend.

"Do you have a bounty?" White asked again, and Black just face palmed. Something which Usopp could relate to, because Luffy did a lot of stupid things as well.

"No," Usopp answered. Technically Dorry had a bounty but that was old and these pirates were idiots.

"He seems to not be important," White concluded and Grey threw a chicken bone after him.

"There is no way he's telling the truth," he said and continued eating.

"What? Really?!" White exclaimed and at this point Usopp suspected that he must have been slightly drunk as well, because this couldn't be real.

"We should report to Kaori-san," Black suggested and this time a few more people seemed to agree.

"Did she return to base?" Grey asked and the atmosphere fell.

"We'll just wait until she does," Black insisted.

"You just want to take the glory for capturing him!" White accused, "We all know how you feel about Kaori-san!" There was laughter and teasing from the crowd.

"Yeah, we all know how you want nothing more than to get into her pants," Grey commented and Black took a step back. This was turning into the most immature conversation Usopp had been a witness to, which should say a lot.

"Fuck all of you! We all know that telling Kaori-san is the best thing to do!"

"Sure, sure." Grey continued the teasing, "I agree with you, but only because I want to see her punch you in the face again. How long were you unconscious last time? A day? A week?"

"It was only two hours!" Black defended though it didn't make him look any better. Usopp was on the girl's side though. He'd punch Black too if he ever got close enough.

"So are we telling Kaori-san or...?" White questioned and they all seemed at agree that even with Black's... affections for her, it was probably the wisest decision.

A few of the pirates yawned, while some stretched out their tired bodies, and slowly they all started leaving to go to bed. In the end Usopp was left alone with Grey, who was somehow still eating. He wasn't even particularly big, maybe a little taller than Zoro, but build a lot like him, though Usopp was sure that Zoro had him beat in pure strength.

"Are you cold?" Grey asked not looking at Usopp, but since there was no one else around, Usopp figured he was talking to him.

"No," Usopp answered truthfully. It might be night, but it was still summer on a summer island, which meant that even the nights were warm.

"Good, 'cause it'd be too much trouble if I had to move you closer to the fire."

Usopp squinted his eyes in suspicion; "Why do you care?"

"We took you prisoner without knowing who you are," he shrugged, "It'd be unfair to treat you horribly, besides," he threw a bone over his shoulder and went for another one, "If you do turn out to have a bounty on your head, the marines will pay more money if you're in good health."

"So you're bounty hunters?" Usopp asked because he'd just assumed that they were pirates even without having seen their jolly roger.

"We're part-time bounty hunters," Grey explained, "We started out as pirates, but we came to realize that you get better ships and weapons if you actually pay for it, so we started capturing pirates to earn some easy money."

"That makes sense..." Usopp said quietly to himself, and then turned the conversation to a different topic, "Who's Kaori-san?"

"Division Commander," Grey replied through chewing, "Pretty strong, 'think she could give Vice-Captain a good run for his money."

Usopp was a little scared to keep asking, because so far Grey had been pretty reasonable, but in the end, Usopp was still his prisoner.

"Anyway, you should probably get some sleep, not much else for you to do really. G'night." And with that Usopp was left alone, tied to a pole staring into the flames of the abandoned camp fire. Though he didn't want to, Usopp fell asleep halfway through the night.

He was woken with the rising of the sun. As Usopp opened his eyes, he found that there was still no one around him, but in the morning light, he could see the camp a little clearer. It was a big place. There was something which looked like a mast in the distance, and with Usopp's limited knowledge of ship design, he concluded that there was about a kilometre between his position at the edge of the camp and the ship in the distance. It had to be a big ship as well, but that would make sense considering how enormous the place was. The camp was mostly made up of tents of various sizes, but there were a few watchtowers surrounding the general area. Apparently Usopp must have stumbled upon the entrance when he first found the base, because it seemed that the base was in an enclosed space. It wouldn't actually be hard to climb the wooden walls, but they would probably keep most of the animals out, and if every night turned into a murder game, then Usopp could understand why they had decided to build a wall.

People slowly began coming out of their tents, but Usopp thought that they looked a lot more like villagers getting ready for another day at the farm rather than evil pirates. They all seemed tired and fairly robotic as they waved through the camp looking for discarded clothes or a place to pee. Some people found buckets of water to dump on themselves in the hopes of waking up, but it only seemed to work for a handful of them. It was also getting quite disturbing with the amount of naked dudes going around. Usopp didn't have a problem with naked guys, but half of them looked like they didn't know what a shower was, and when Usopp could see someone scratching their balls no matter where he turned his head, it got just a little disgusting. Apparently he wasn't the only one with these thoughts.

"Have you guys never heard of a shower?!" A voice boomed and all the guys in the area stopped whatever they were doing and looked to the person yelling at them.

Usopp tried to see past the ass blocking his view and got a glance at the woman talking to them. Short black hair, tanned skin, more muscular than Luffy and a metal arm. She looked equally as beautiful as she looked dangerous.

"We're sorry, Kaori-san!" They all said in unison, and then they scattered. Hopefully to take that shower. Meanwhile, she got closer to Usopp.

As she stood in front of him, Usopp had expected for her to keep towering over him, but instead she just took a seat on the ground opposite him, and stared very intensely at his face. When she was done with that she looked him up and down, and, better late than never, started expecting his body for any weapons. When she didn't find any she resumed to her position, sitting opposite him with crossed legs and resting her head on her clenched fist.

"You're Sogeking, right?"

"Huh?" Usopp responded dumbfounded. This seemed like it was leading into a casual conversation rather than a terrifying interrogation.

"Don't even think about lying. The world only has so many long nosed snipers, and we know that the strawhats are on this island."

"So what if I am? What would you do?" Usopp said avoiding the question.

"Hmm~" Kaori-san pondered as if she hadn't decided what to do with him yet, "I guess we'd have to take you to the Captain, but right now we have bigger concerns than revenge."

"Revenge?" Usopp questioned, now relatively confused. Did they know these pirates?

"Your friend, the cat burglar, she did something pretty bad and the Captain is not about to forgive her for that, and under normal circumstances, we'd probably just kill you. However, as it turns out, you'll be more useful to us as a fail-safe hostage."

"Why?" Usopp pushed, because these people seemed very eager to keep telling him everything.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," Kaori-san answered, clearly not as stupid as the rest of them. She'd probably only revealed what she needed to so that Usopp would feel less compelled to run away.

She then began untying the ropes that bound him to the pole: "And as a useful hostage, we'll treat you nicely," she made sure to tie his hands before dragging him along with her, "Do you want a shower?"

Usopp entered a big tent which seemed to belong to Kaori. He was allowed a shower, and when he was all cleaned up he got food, and when he was finished he was tied to a comfortable chair. The whole time Usopp had expected someone to attack him, but everything was fine. The water wasn't acid and the food hadn't been poisoned, and while he was just in a glorified prison, this wasn't too bad.

"Comfortable?" Kaori asked, she had of course been with him the entire time to make sure he didn't escape.

"I suppose," Usopp said and followed her movements as she walked from one end of the room to the other. She sat down by a table to do some paperwork, which, again, made them seem less like pirates.

They were silent for a long while as Usopp assumed that disturbing her while she was working would backfire on him. At some point she started to grow bored with the work and put down the pen. Usopp took the chance to strike up a conversation.

"So have you contacted my crew yet?" He asked and she looked at him questioning, "I mean, you can't really use me as a hostage if they don't know you have me captured. They'd need proof as well."

"As I said," Kaori began explaining, she didn't really sound annoyed, but just not interested either, "You're a fail-safe hostage. We'll only use you if plan A fails, which you should pray it does. If not, you're dead meat."

Great, Usopp thought, but pushed the negativity aside. He needed more information: "And what exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

She looked at him for a while, probably trying to figure out if it was wise to share this much information with him, "The same as you," she answered, and Usopp just stared at her, "We're gathering ingredients for the cure to the Sun Kiss."

Usopp slowly put things together: "So... in case you can't make the antidote, you're going to trade me for it?"

"Pretty much," she answered, "we have everything but the flower which blooms tonight, so you should pray that whoever you send is stronger than your cyborg friend."

"Franky?" Usopp questioned again, and almost regretted saying his name, but at this stage, what was the point?

"He was good sport, but nothing more. We sent our sniper and best swordsman to get the flower. You need to do better than him to win against those two."

Ignoring the fact that Robin was getting into a lot of trouble, Usopp wanted to get on this girl's good side, because he was slowly seeing opportunities for him to get out of captivity without having to rob Luffy of his antidote.

"Why aren't you going?" Usopp asked trying to sound the least mocking he could, because he really needed this girl to like him.

"What do you mean?"

"You're the Division Commander, right? I heard you're on par with the Vice-Captain." Whoever he is. "Why not send you?"

She gritted her teeth. Had he stepped on a landmine? She looked more annoyed by the second, and Usopp quickly apologized for bringing up the topic.

"No," she said firmly, "You're right. She should have sent me to deal with it. Doesn't she trust my strength yet?"

Kaori got up, knocked over the chair she had been sitting on and started pacing. She looked deep in thought and now Usopp was wondering why she was this upset about it. He had meant for this to turn into a flattering conversation, where they'd slowly become more friendly and he'd then propose that she let him go, and he would in return get some of the antidote for her. There was no way they'd only have enough for one person.

Without another word to Usopp she left the tent and he was left wondering what to do now. He closed his eyes and formed a plan. He needed to prepare for two scenarios. Either Robin succeeded in getting the flower in which case these pirates would use him as a hostage. The problem here was that Luffy would have to make the call and he'd always chose a crew mate over himself. Therefore Usopp needed to somehow get out of his captivity before anything happened. However, in the event that the pirates should get the flower, Usopp needed to, not only survive, but hopeful secure the flower himself. He was in the middle of their camp, and this would surely be the place they would take the flower.

Usopp opened his eyes again, and looked through the small crack in the opening of the tent. He probably had an hour left until sunset, but his fate would be determined around midnight. He could only wait... or so he thought. In the corner of his eye, Usopp spotted something, and for all the precautions Kaori had taken, she had apparently made one big mistake. Because right there, not too far from Usopp, was a knife. He couldn't reach it from where he was tied up, but the chair he was in was not secured to anything, and he slowly started rocking back and forth until he eventually fell closer to the knife. From the ground he slowly crawled closer to it, until he was close enough to the table it was lying on. He then head butted the table, heard the knife fall and claimed his prize.

The process was slow, and the sun had almost fully set when Usopp had finally managed to cut himself free. He enjoyed his freedom for a short while until he started moving. He couldn't leave the camp until it was confirmed that Robin had gotten the flower, but he didn't want to stay in this tent either, so he snuck out.

A long night awaited him.

If you enjoyed reading then please fave, follow for more and leave a review with your thoughts. I tried to give you a little more insight concerning the enemy pirates since I actually have a lot of thoughts concerning many of them which I know I won't have time to fit into the story, so the least I can do is try to make them shine through in other ways :)